


What Lies Beneath

by lottienaut



Series: Deep Space Gigantism [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Hunk/Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Lance is going to suffer, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, alien parasites
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7674778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lottienaut/pseuds/lottienaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance was looking back at the mouth of the cavern, yelling as loud as the rest of them as he kicked at the creature tearing and pulling at his leg. It was going to take them all down if someone didn’t do something.</p><p>Hunk saw the exact moment Lance got it in his head that that someone had to be him. Their eyes met again for a longer moment. This time though, Hunk knew exactly what words were coming out of Lance's mouth.  </p><p>“I’m sorry, buddy,” he shouted, fitting one of his grins onto his face, the one that always meant trouble, that always meant detention, that always meant adventure. It was the one Lance always wore when he wanted everyone to think he knew exactly what he was doing. Hunk was stunned by how out of place it was and maybe that’s why it was so easy for Lance to shove him and Pidge away. </p><p>Lance didn’t scream as he went over the edge, but Hunk did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Descent

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically just some really self indulgent fic where Lance gets possessed by an alien parasite. All tentacles mentioned are non-sexual, I promise.

Sometimes, in private moments, Hunk wondered if any of this was real. It had all happened so fast, and then it had just kept happening, and it only caught up with him when he was alone that a lot of the stuff they had gone through was almost too crazy to believe. The space travel, the magical robot lions, the alien royalty. Everyone who attended the Garrison dreamed big, everyone wanted to see the edges of the solar system, but Hunk was realistic. If he was lucky, he thought he’d be plotting course directories from the ground. He thought he’d never actually see the inside of anything that wasn’t a simulator. And yet here he was, living like his life was the sort of mecha anime he’d watched on Saturday mornings when he was a kid, walking around on an alien planet that seemed to be comprised of ninety percent jungle. And there was Lance, poking at alien tree sap while something resembling a toucan glared at them with beady little bird eyes from a few branches above their heads. Hunk tried waving politely. The bird stared harder.

“I think Keith is hiding an embarrassing tattoo from us,” Lance said, cutting through the background noise of the jungle as Pidge did her best to slash through the vines that were blocking their way forward with her bayard.

“Huh?” Hunk said, his moment of self-reflection effectively broken.

“Underneath his gloves,” Lance clarified and brought up his hands to tap his palm with one accusing finger. “What other reason is there for him to be wearing them all the time? He sleeps with them on, Hunk. That’s unsanitary.”

“How do you know he sleeps with them on?” Hunk’s eyebrows were drawn together in confusion, but he’d gotten used to Lance bringing up Keith seemingly at random a long time ago. It had happened at least once a week when they’d all still been at the Garrison, before Keith had been expelled. Hunk had thought it might stop happening now that they were all living in space together, but if anything it happened more frequently. Most of the venom had gone out of Lance’s tirades though. Now he just rambled like he was trying to get something out of his system.

“That’s unimportant.” Lance waved his hand dismissively, like Hunk was missing the point.

“Uh, okay.”

Somewhere far off in the distance there was a quiet, animalistic howl. It made a shiver go up Hunk’s spine as he cast a glance at Pidge, who seemed less worried about the imminent threat of attack. He looked up at where the alien toucan had been, but it was gone like it’d never been there. Hunk grimaced at the empty space it left behind. There was a nervous tension in his gut that had been building with each step they took into the jungle. The canopy had grown thicker and thicker the farther in they went until the only light shown through a dense barrier of leaves. Now everything was cast in a fuzzy green glow.

“On a completely unrelated note,” Lance started up again only a few seconds later. “I think we need to talk to Coran about like, color coding the castle hallways. Putting up some signs not written in dead alien languages-“

“Altean,” Pidge corrected, giving them both a glance from over her shoulder. “They’re all written in Altean. And if you stopped skipping Allura’s daily Altean lessons, you probably wouldn’t get lost so much.”

“First of all, Pidge, Allura should stop having those lessons so early in the space morning-“

“I don’t think it’s technically morning if we’re never near the same sun,” Pidge said. She turned back around to assess her progress. Her bayard was tiny and made more for precision and detail, not hacking through foliage, but Hunk had vetoed shooting wildly with either his or Lance’s guns until they caught the attention of whatever else was roaming around in the jungle.

“Second,” Lance continued with one irritated eyebrow raised, “stop interrupting me, I’m trying to make a point about hallways that look the same and how easy it is to mistake your fellow paladin’s room for your own at 2 o’clock in the space morning. And how those fellow paladins should consider that sleeping with both their fingerless gloves on and a knife under their pillow makes them look a little paranoid.” 

“Well, I don’t know, man. I think after you live alone in the desert for a couple months with only weird cave paintings to keep you company, you’re kind of allowed to be a little paranoid,” Hunk said. He’d sat down on the ground somewhere in the middle of Lance’s rant about Keith – the third one this week, not that he was counting. Now he was drawing patterns in the dirt with a twig, trying to recreate Shay’s wide smile from memory and keep his mind off the truly freakish vibes he was getting from the surrounding jungle.

“Especially if those weird cave paintings turn out to be pointing you towards a giant magical robot lion,” Pidge added.

Lance looked skyward, observing the canopy of leaves above with a small frown and a sigh. “You know, when you say it all out loud like that it makes our lives sound really weird.”

“That’s because our lives _are_ really weird, Lance,” Pidge grunted and the curtain of vines blocking their path fell away. Unfiltered sunshine spilled through, splashing across ground at their feet, but the nervous twist in Hunk’s gut only grew stronger.

As if on cue, Shiro’s voice came crackling through their comms. “Pidge, have you guys reached the location of the distress beacon yet?”

“On our way,” Pidge answered and Hunk picked himself up off the ground, smudging away Shay’s face with his heel. “Allura, couldn’t you have given us some hedge clippers or something?”

“My apologies, paladins. The planet’s ecosystem seems to have changed greatly from what it once was. Please proceed with caution,” Allura replied, though she sounded distracted. Before, when they’d been discussing their plan of action upon arrival Allura had explained that something about the planet was making it hard for any of the ship’s scanners to get an accurate assessment of the planet’s atmosphere and landscape. That meant it was impossible to find out if the air was breathable, despite the abundance of trees. None of the paladins had taken their helmets off to find out one way or the other.

“In other words, this whole planet is an unpredictable sack of rats,” Lance said, frown still in place.

“I think you mean cats,” Keith’s voice piped in over the comms. Lance yelped in surprise and Hunk gave him a worried look. In comparison, the rest of the jungle seemed to have grown unnaturally quiet and still.

“Um, guys?” Hunk tried, but Lance didn’t seem to hear him.

“Don’t tell me what I mean, _Keith_.” He said Keith’s name as if it tasted bitter on his tongue. Hunk hadn’t heard him say it like that since their first couple weeks on board the Castle of Lions. “And just how long have you been on comms for?”

“Uh, since Shiro turned his on. Why?” Allura had sent Keith and Shiro out in their lions to check out the rest of the planet and patrol for any Galra vessels. So far, they hadn’t reported anything of notice except more jungle. 

“Lance was just speculating about what’s underneath your clothes,” Pidge said, smirking gleefully and doing her best impression of a cat who’d finally gotten the cream. She looked back at Lance whose mouth was hanging open in shock and waggled her eyebrows at him.

“Traitor!” he accused, running after her as she quickly scampered through the path she’d cut out for them.

“Guys, come on! We gotta be quiet! I think something might be-” Hunk’s protests were cut short when he ran right into Lance’s back, sending him stumbling towards the giant chasm that lay sprawled out before them. Hunk’s hand shot out, catching Lance’s shoulder and saving him from falling over the edge, but it had been a close thing.

“Holy crow, how far down does this thing go?” Pidge wondered aloud, her voice echoing loudly down into the dark. Lance scrambled back from the edge and further into Hunk’s arms, his eyes wide.

“Allura, didn’t you say this was where the distress signal was coming from?” Hunk said into his comm.

“Yes, it was activated only a few years ago. According to our admittedly outdated maps of the planet you’re standing just on the outside of one of its major cities.”

There was a brief beat of silence as the three paladins looked to one another and then out across the gaping chasm. It stretched out almost like an ocean, the other end barely visible beyond the horizon. A cold wind seemed to drift up from the dark and wash over them, seeping through their paladin suits and down into their bones. They all took a few nervous steps back.

“What’s going on, you guys?” Shiro prompted.

“I don’t think their distress signal was Galra related,” Pidge said.

“Yeah, whatever city was here, it’s not anymore. It looks like it got swallowed up by the earth. This is like, Grand Canyon levels over here, guys.” Lance said, craning his neck to look over the side. “Actually this is probably deeper. And waaaay uglier.”

“Then we were too late,” Keith said, sounding grim.

“A couple years late from the looks of it. I don’t think there’s anything we could have done,” Pidge said over Shiro’s weary sigh.

“Pidge is right. There’s no use blaming ourselves for something out of our hands. Let’s head back to-" The rest of his sentence was lost to a deafening crack of rocks that made the ground beneath their feet rumble. It was immediately followed by a shrieking cry from within the chasm, so piercing and high pitched that Hunk, Pidge, and Lance all winced and stumbled back in pain, their ears stinging.

“What was that?” Hunk heard Keith shout, but it only added to the noise and commotion and Hunk couldn’t tell if anyone was able to give him an answer. He looked over to Lance only to find that he’d fallen to the ground, one hand shooting out to grab onto Hunk’s ankle like he meant to take Hunk down with him. The inhuman shrieking rang on and Hunk felt something trickle out from his ear and down his neck. Lance looked up at him with his mouth moving around words Hunk couldn’t hear. Their eyes locked for a just a fraction of a moment.

Then, before any of them could make sense of what was happening, Lance was being dragged across the ground by something dark and gleaming, the color of black ice in the sun. It reached up from below the edge of the chasm and was wrapped tightly around one of Lance’s legs. His grip on Hunk’s ankle was torn away as if his strength meant nothing.

“Lance!” Pidge screamed. It barely cut through the chaos enough to draw Hunk out of the initial shock of seeing Lance pulled away from him. She was on him in an instant and Hunk followed soon after, their hands clutching at each of his arms as they tried to wrestle him away from whatever was pulling him into the dark. They dug their feet into the dirt, but everything, even the soil, seemed to shift and move beneath them. The ground had started to shake again.

There was more shouting over the comms but neither paladins could spare the concentration to respond. They didn’t even have time to think. Whatever had a grip on Lance was strong and it was pulling them all towards the edge with a terrifying persistence. If they let go of Lance for even a second to reach for their bayards, Lance would be gone.

“We need help! Shiro, Keith, get over here now!” Pidge yelled, but they all knew neither would get there in time. Lance was looking back at the mouth of the cavern, yelling as loud as the rest of them as he kicked at the creature tearing and pulling at his leg. It was going to take them all down if someone didn’t do something.

Hunk saw the exact moment Lance got it in his head that that someone had to be him. Their eyes met again for a longer moment. This time though, Hunk knew exactly what words were coming out of his mouth.  

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he shouted, fitting one of his grins onto his face, the one that always meant trouble, that always meant detention, that always meant adventure. It was the one Lance always wore when he wanted everyone to think he knew exactly what he was doing. Hunk was stunned by how out of place it was and maybe that’s why it was so easy for Lance to shove him and Pidge away.

Lance didn’t scream as he went over the edge, but Hunk did.

* * *

 

“We have to go down after him,” was the first thing out of Hunk’s mouth. The shrieking and shaking had stopped, but the silence that followed it had seemed almost louder in comparison, only filled by the harsh breaths Pidge and Hunk were sucking in desperately. Pidge had to struggle to tear her gaze away from the spot in the darkness where she’d last seen Lance.

“Wait. Hunk wait,” Pidge insisted, getting to her feet on unsteady legs. She felt dizzy, like she’d just gotten off a roller coaster, but Hunk seemed to be powering through it and heading towards the mouth of the chasm with a look of set determination on his face. Pidge scrambled to get between him and the edge, her hands pressing at his chest. “I can’t get anyone on the comms. Something’s jamming the signal. Hunk, stop. Please, stop.”

“So? So what if the signal’s jammed? Lance is down there, Pidge. We can’t just stand here and do nothing,” he said, hands curled into fists at his side like he expected a fight. Pidge’s fingers dug into the material of Hunk’s pilot suit.

“I’m not saying I want to. But we have to think, Hunk. Doesn’t this seem weird? The ships scanners couldn’t get an accurate read out of this place, but our comms were working fine until now. Doesn’t this seem a little,” she paused, searching for the right word, shaking her head in frustration. “I don’t know, planned?”

“You’re saying you think it’s a trap?” Hunk didn’t look any less determined but his shoulders had sagged just a little, and he looked less ready to go over the edge and follow Lance. Pidge dropped her arms to her side and tried to keep her breathing steady.

“I’m saying it’s suspicious. I think we should wait for the others. This is the last place they had our signal, they should be here any minute,” Pidge replied. But then Hunk said what they were both thinking. What they were both dreading.

“How many minutes do you think Lance has left?”

* * *

 

“Pidge? Pidge, can you hear me? Lance? Hunk?” The shrieking had been cut off abruptly, leaving only an empty quiet on the other side of the comms as Shiro and Keith flew their lions towards the distress beacon. Shiro continued to call out to them, but no answer came. Keith didn't say a word, listening to silence that had replaced his friend’s terrified yelling only a few moments ago.

“The signals from their suits are gone,” Coran said, sounding alarmed. “I don’t know exactly how yet, but my best guess is that it’s the same interference that’s been blocking our ship’s scanners. We haven’t been able to identify the source, but we’re working on it.”

Keith’s grip on his controls tightened and he bit his bottom lip to keep from saying what he was thinking. Signals didn’t need to be jammed if they were already destroyed. But he didn’t think that. He couldn’t think that. Keith would know if they were gone. He’d been inside their heads; he’d felt them in his own head. Dozens of times, every time they formed Voltron. He would know if they were gone.

“We’re heading to their last known location now, Princess,” Shiro said, pushing his lion to go as fast as it could. Below them the canopy was just a green smudge of motion.

“Good. We’ll try to get their signal back. If we can find out what exactly is interfering with our scanners, we should be able to bypass it.” Allura sounded so calm in Keith’s ear and he wondered how she could manage it. His fingers started to ache where he was clutching at Red’s throttle and his mouth was set into a hard, firm line. In the distance he could see a large gap in the trees, as if a massive hand had reached down and scooped out a whole section of the jungle.

“I think that’s it up there,” he said to Shiro, glancing over at where his face was displayed on his dashboard.

Below them the canyon Lance had described came into view. Lance had been right when he’d called it ugly. It looked unnatural, ominous, almost like it was the gaping maw of a predator. And standing just on the edge, barely visible in comparison, were two paladin-shaped dots. Keith swallowed hard. Just two. He could tell by their silhouettes who they were. Lance wasn’t there. Cold dread pumped through his veins like ice water.

“Shiro-“ But Shiro didn’t let him finish. Keith was almost thankful. He didn’t know how he was going to end that sentence.

“Come on, we need to land.”

When they stepped out of their lions Pidge and Hunk were there to meet them, and one look at their faces was enough to figure out most of what had happened. Still, when Hunk said nothing, Pidge spoke up.

“Something dragged Lance down. We didn’t get a good look at it, but the best comparison I can come up with is that it was some kind of tentacle, except more reptilian looking. As soon as he went over the edge the shrieking stopped and our comms went dead.”

Finally, Hunk spoke.

“We have to go after him.”

He stared down Keith and then Shiro, as if he was daring them to argue. Keith glared back at him. Of course they were going after him. Lance was the Blue Paladin. They needed him.

Shiro looked between him and Hunk for a moment, a calculating look in his eyes, and then nodded. “Right. Hunk, you’re with me. Pidge, you’re with Keith. There’s no time to get your lions from their hangers and we won’t be able to form Voltron down there without Lance anyway so it’s safer that they stay in the castle.” He turned his eyes skyward as if he was searching for where the castle hung in the planet’s orbit. “Princess, can you still hear me?”

“We’ve still got your signal, but both Pidge and Hunk’s are down,” She answered.

“And Lance’s?” Keith asked, and the others looked at him, seemingly surprised he’d spoken up.

“There’s nothing. I’m sorry.”

Shiro breathed out a quick breath and looked at the other Paladins one by one. “Okay, everyone. Let’s go get Lance back.”


	2. Infinitesimal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance POV time. Sorry I keep skipping all around when it comes to POV, but I am probably not going to stop. Also thank you all so much for your positive feedback. It makes me really happy knowing people are enjoying this as much as I am.

Lance had a lot of time to think as he drifted in and out of consciousness, laying in the dark on the cold cavern floor. He thought about dying, and how much it hurt, and how much his abuelita was a liar. She said it was like going to sleep, that it was peaceful and you saw a light and also something about angels and God’s warm, welcoming embrace.

Well, there was none of that now. No light, no warmth, just a lot of pain.

He couldn’t hear anything either and there was a dull, aching throb on either side of his head. Lance had concluded a while ago that his eardrums must have burst on the way down towards whatever was making that awful screaming noise.

Something moved in the dark occasionally. The blood in Lance’s eyes stung and made it hard to see anything in the already pitch darkness, but Lance knew something was out there, circling, shark-like. A cold rush of fear had spread through his body when he’d first noticed it, after a while though that had settled down into a detached numbness. It was hard enough for him to summon up the strength to keep himself awake, let alone worry about whatever it was that was out there.

His paladin suit was torn open along his arms and chest, and his helmet had been removed. Maybe he’d lost it during the fall, or maybe Lance was just being hopeful. Either way, it looked like he’d finally found out if the air was breathable.

“Could you-“ Lance coughed violently, blood wet on his lips. It was so strange not being able to hear his own voice, only knowing that he was speaking by the vibrations in his chest. The circling thing came closer. He could feel a rush of air that might have been it breathing. “Could you get to killing me a little faster? Didn’t your mom ever tell you it’s bad to play with your food?”

The creature stopped moving, stopped breathing, at his words and there was nothing but stagnant air for a moment. Lance thought that somehow that was even worse. He hoped it hadn’t gone away. _Please don’t leave me alone for this,_ he thought desperately, his fingers digging into hard stone.

Then there was something cold on the bottom of his chin, tipping his head back like he’d seen people do in movies when they were about to give someone CPR. On his next breath, Lance caught the smell of something smoky and thick. It clogged up his nose and made him think of that time he’d accidentally put plastic in the microwave for too long.   

“You don't smell like a hot alien babe,” Lance muttered, already feeling himself starting to fade. “ No kissing on the mouth if you’re not. I’ve got standards. Respect my last wishes.”

The blood loss was probably making him hysterical.

Another something brushed up against the shell of his right ear and Lance tried to jerk his head away in surprise, but the thing at his chin twisted up to cup his cheek and hold him in place. It poked and prodded until it found his ear canal and Lance shuddered hard.

“Uhg, that’s so gross. You’re so gross. There’s no brains in there for you to eat, Pidge told me so,” Lance groaned, shutting his eyes against the dark. The ground felt like it was spinning beneath him, like he was the center of the entire planet, and everything moved around him. There was more pain, this time between his eyes and arching down into his throat as quick as a lightning strike. His limps, which had previously been growing cold, lit up with a heated tingling sensation. He almost welcomed the swift slide back into unconsciousness because otherwise he was definitely going to puke.

As he drifted off again, he was only partially aware that it had suddenly become a lot brighter on the other side of his eyelids.

* * *

 

“So, what exactly are we looking for again?” Keith asked, after about ten minutes of tense, uninterrupted silence. Pidge was leaning over his shoulder, scanning all of the readings flittering across Red’s dashboard as if she could discern anything useful from them.

“You mean besides Lance?” she said, not bothering to look at him as she spoke. Keith shot her a glare that she was proving to be absolutely immune to.

“ _Yeah_ , I mean besides Lance.”

“Whatever it is, it’s gotta be big. I mean, it shook the entire ground just by screaming at us,” Hunk said, his face flickering into view from Shiro’s lion.

“Great,” Keith muttered, turning back to look out into the dark. The lights spilling out from Red and the Black Lion could only do so much to illuminate the massive expanse of shadows swirling around them. As they’d gone down the cavern had become more twisted and narrow, blocking out most of the sunlight with steep ledges. Keith was glad they’d only brought two lions along for this, it would have been much harder to maneuver if they’d tried to squeeze all four of their lions down here.

He thought maybe this was a little bit like being in a submarine, so deep down that he knew everything that had learned to live here had never once seen the sun. After the Garrison, when he’d been on his own, he’d watched a documentary about deep sea gigantism, the phenomenon that stated that the deeper you went down in the ocean, the larger things tended to get. Sometimes he wondered if space worked the same way. He thought back to the Balmera, how it had been alive and so huge. It was an idea that made him feel very small in comparison.

He’d only ever told that to Lance, just a few weeks after they'd returned from liberating Shay’s people. It had been one of those nights where sleep was impossible and Keith had wandered out onto the observation deck to find Lance already there, looking up at the holographic stars and planets with his knees drawn up close. There’d been this expression on his face, a longing that pulled at something deep in Keith's chest. He remembered wanting to go over and press the crease between Lance’s eyebrows away with his thumb.

When he’d approached, Lance didn’t even seem that surprised to see him. _Couldn’t sleep?_ He’d said, his voice soft in a way Keith had never heard it before. It had been so easy to talk to Lance like that and they’d stayed that way for hours. But in the morning Lance didn’t mention it and neither did Keith.

“Hey, hellooo? Earth to Keith.” Pidge was waving a hand in front of Keith’s face and he jolted back to attention in his seat. “Did you hear what Shiro said?”

“Sorry.” He shook his head hard, angry at himself. Now was no time to be spacing out. “Repeat that, Shiro?”

“I’m getting a heat signature,” Shiro said. “It’s about fifty ticks north of here and it’s big. Get ready.”

Keith was the one who saw it first. An immense ink blot that was almost entirely invisible in the dark except for its single eye that was spinning wildly in its socket as it caught the light from their lions. “There!” Keith cried as it started to move. Everything about it was large, at least three times the size of the Black Lion. Its body was barely crammed into the winding pathways of the cavern floor, but it’s tendrils had no trouble shooting up and wrapping around Red’s torso before either Shiro or Keith could think to move out of the way.

It slammed Red into the nearest wall of rock, sending Pidge crashing into the other side of Keith’s cockpit. Acting on instinct, Keith maneuvered Red around and sent a jet of flames towards it’s single staring eye, lighting up the entire cavern with harsh orange light. The tendril it had wrapped around Red withered away, shrinking like charred paper.

“Stop!” Pidge yelled, nearly throwing herself across Keith’s lap to pull his hand away from the controls.

“What are you _doing_?” Keith yelled back as he tried to yank his arm out of her grasp.

“We don’t know where Lance is! He could be down there,” she explained hurriedly. “We’ve got to be careful.”

Keith scowled, “What’s your idea then? Ask it nicely to give Lance back?”

“Do you think that would work?” Hunk’s hopeful voice was answered with a terrible shriek from the alien monster as it shot more inky black tendrils at their lions. They were barely able to dodge, the tendrils blended in so well in the dark.

“I don’t think it wants to make friends,” Pidge supplied.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Shiro said finally. “Keith, I want you to draw the creature out. Use just enough fire to get it moving. We need to lure it into an open space, make it vulnerable. Then, when I give the signal, get as far away from it as you can.”

“Got it.” Keith replied. “What about you?”

“You’ll see. Just be ready for the signal.”

Keith didn’t need to be told twice. He flew right at the alien, close enough to shoot out quick, small bursts of flames around the creature, rounding around back and expertly dodging its tentacles. The shrieking started up again, though Keith couldn’t see anything resembling a mouth. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere deep within the alien monster, and it was loud enough that the walls of the cavern began to shake.

“Not this again,” Hunk groaned. Around them, chunks of rocks were dislodging and crashing to the ground, kicking dust and debris into the air.

“No, this is exactly what we need.” Shiro said. Keith slowly coaxed the monster out of its crevice and just barely weaved Red between the thrashing tendrils the monster flung out in all directions. Pidge was basically hugging the back of his seat to keep herself from getting tossed around the cockpit.

“Just another twenty yards, Keith.”

From his peripherals, Keith saw Shiro land the Black Lion on a small cliff just above the spot where the creature was heading, mindless and unthinking except for its base need to get away from whatever was burning it. The way its countless arms writhed and its eye spun aimlessly, it was almost easy to pity the alien. It was clear that it was just a mass of thoughtless instincts: kill or be killed, eat whatever pray is closest, defend your territory.

Three more ticks, two, one, and then Shiro’s signal came. “Keith! Go now!” Keith pulled up and Red was gone in an instant, darting out of reach. Shiro launched the Black lion up as well and shot a well aimed blast across the cliff he’d just been perched on. With all the shaking, the rock was already dangerously unstable, and Shiro’s shot dislodged the entire thing from the side of the chasm wall. It plummeted down, landing right atop the alien’s massive body. There was a guttural, wet sound as the shrieking was cut off abruptly and its many arms all dropped to the chasm floor at once, still and dead.

“Okay, _that_ ,” Hunk said from beside him, “Was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen. That was like watching someone kill a spider but the spider was the size of the Titanic.”

“Let’s just be glad the visibility isn’t so great down here,” Pidge offered, carefully peeling her arms off Keith’s headrest.

Only a second later Allura’s face popped up beside Shiro’s on Keith’s dashboard.

“Paladins, I have Lance’s signal. Actually, I have all of your signals. Whatever was interfering with our scanners is gone. I’m sending you Lance’s location now. The vitals from his suit indicate that he’s alive-” The whole team let out a small breath of relief that they’d all been collectively holding. “But he’s not responding.”

“From what we can tell, he’s unconscious,” Coran added helpfully. “But we aren’t sure what condition he’s in. So be careful, everyone. You humans are a fragile species after all.”

“Uh, thanks, Coran. Noted,” Shiro said. Lance’s location, alongside a more accurate layout of the cavern expanded like an unfurling map across Keith’s screen.

“He’s back the way we came from. The alien must have been guarding him or something,” Pidge said. Keith was already swinging his lion around and heading towards Lance’s location.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “But for what?”

* * *

 

They found Lance tucked away in a small cave, not even big enough for Keith to stand up fully in. He had to crawl in on his hands and knees to pull Lance out, unconscious and barely stirring when Keith pressed two fingers to his neck— just to be sure Allura had got it right. 

“Lance. Hey, Lance, it’s me. It’s Keith. We’re going to get you out of here,” he said. He tried to move him gingerly. Even in the dim light the lions provided it was clear Lance wasn’t in great shape. Every shallow breath he took seemed to rattle harshly in his chest. His eyes were shut tight and his lips twitched like he was about to try and say something. Keith leaned in close to hear what he said.

“Please don’t kiss me.”

Keith shot up so fast he hit his head on the ceiling of the cave, cursing loudly.

“Dude, what’s going on in there? Is Lance okay?” Keith heard Hunk yell.

“He- he’s fine,” Keith called back. His cheeks felt like someone had just slapped him half a dozen times. “I think he’s dreaming.”

Lance started to mumble something else, but Keith made the decision to ignore him, going back to carefully extracting him from the crawl space the alien had stashed him in. Keith kept going over it in his head: the alien, the jammed signals, Lance being taken. None of it made any sense. What had been the point? Why had the alien taken Lance in the first place if it was just going to shove him in some hole? Why had it been guarding him like that?

“You better have more answers than we do when you wake up,” Keith said quietly to Lance’s unconscious body as he dragged him the last few feet out of the cave. Then Hunk was practically pushing him out of the way, his fingers finding the same spot Keith’s had only moments before. He relaxed visibly when he was able to confirm that his friend still had a pulse.

Keith heard Hunk whisper under his breath something that unmistakably sounded like, “You stupid jerk.” But he didn’t have time to think about what that might mean.

“We need to get him back to the castle.” Pidge’s voice was quiet. She was the only one keeping her distance, standing off to the side. If Keith knew any better, he’d say she was avoiding looking at where Lance lay. Or maybe pouting.

“He can ride in the Black Lion.” Shiro turned to look at Hunk but Hunk wasn’t looking up from Lance’s face. “Hunk, you think you can hold him until we get back up to the castle?”

Hunk nodded wordlessly and very gently scooped Lance up into his arms like he was a princess. He looked very determined, like he was half expecting another alien monster to come along and try and take Lance again.

“Ten bucks says Lance smells like alien guts for a week,” Pidge said to him as they went back to the Red Lion. Keith couldn’t find it in himself to crack a smile. But then again, Pidge wasn’t trying very hard either.

“Put me down for two weeks,” Keith said with a sigh.

* * *

 

“Is it just me, or does Lance spend a disproportionate amount of time in here compared to the rest of you?” Coran said when they were all back in the Castle of Lions, crowded around the healing pod where Lance slept deeply.

“It’s not just you,” they all answered in the same tired sounding tone.

“That’s… worrying.” Allura was the only one not standing nearby Lance’s pod. Instead she sat at one of the nearby tables with the mice perched on her shoulders.

“Should we stage some sort of intervention? We are all here after all. I could write a poem,” Coran offered. Keith did not like how hopeful he looked at the prospect of poetry.

“Oh, trust me, as soon as he’s out of that healing pod, there are going to be words,” Hunk said. He looked angry, about as angry as Hunk ever allowed himself to be, with his arms held tightly across his chest.

“What exactly happened out there?” Shiro asked carefully. Keith had been wondering about it too. Something besides Lance’s injuries was bothering both Pidge and Hunk, that much was clear.

 Hunk’s face fell and for a horrible second, Keith thought he was going to start crying. Shiro placed his metal hand on Hunk’s shoulder, giving him one of his open looks of concern that made him so easy to talk to. But it was Pidge that spoke up before Hunk could say anything.

“He pushed us away when the alien had a hold on him. We couldn’t get to our bayards without letting go of Lance and we were all being dragged towards the edge. I think… I think he knew that it was either going to be just him or all of us, so he-” She cut her self off, her mouth snapping closed. Pidge wasn’t looking at any of them, her eyes staring at a random spot on the ground. It was moments like these when it was easy for Keith to remember that she was the youngest out of them. That she was already no stranger to loss.

“I see. Well, that does explain a bit of it,” Allura said, gazing over at the healing pod. Everyone looked over to her.

“It does?” Hunk asked.

“I never did tell you the characteristics of the Blue Lion, did I?” There was a small smile on Allura’s face and her eyes had a far off look to them that Keith couldn’t make sense of, but he recognized it from the rare moments she’d spoken of her past on Altea.

“Something tells me they don’t include being the most handsome or the best pilot of the group,” Shiro said, earning himself a quiet laugh from Allura.

“No, nothing like that.” She stood up and approached the healing pod. The paladins parted to let her pass until she was standing right in front of Lance with just a thin plate of curved glass between them. “The Blue Lion, much like the Yellow Lion, is one of support. It represents confidence, even in the face of unfavorable odds. Its pilot must not only have an instinctual confidence and trust in themselves but also in their fellow paladins.”

Everyone looked from Allura to Lance, trying to line up the description to the boy in the healing pod. Keith stared the hardest.

In the beginning, when they first began trying to form Voltron, Lance had seemed more arrogant than confident. He’d been all talk with nothing to back it up. Just a pretty boy filled with a bunch of hot air. A cargo pilot with a chip on his shoulder. And maybe, in the beginning, he had been those things.

But then Sendek had sent in that bomb. Lance hadn’t even hesitated to put himself between Coran and the blast. He’d pulled himself out of a coma just to help his team and then he’d given Keith that smile while their hands instinctively found each other’s. Lance had looked at him and for a few minutes, Keith was sure they could have done absolutely anything together. He’d said they were a good team and Keith had grinned right back and _believed_ it.  

“I’m sorry, I don’t get it,” Pidge said, but Keith was still just looking at Lance, his expression growing softer. Lance’s shoulders always looked so much broader when he was out of that jacket of his. “What does confidence have to do with this?”

“I think, subconsciously, he knew you’d save him in the end, and that’s why he was willing to let go of you.” Allura pressed a hand to glass, right above where Lance’s chest was rising and falling. “I think he knew we would always come back for him.”

* * *

 

Coming out of the healing pod was always an experience for Lance. It happened quickly, with the ice coating his skin melting away in a burst of steam that left him staggering out into the open air before his brain could even properly turn itself back on. This time though, a pair of thick, sturdy arms was there to wrap around him. And then a hand at the back of his head was pushing his face into a pillowy, soft chest that could only be Hunk’s. With his ear pressed so close, Lance could clearly hear the telltale hitch of breath that meant Hunk was close to tears. 

“Why are you crying, buddy?” Lance asked. His voice came out muffled and weak, but Hunk didn’t seem to care what he was saying one way or another. He thrust Lance away suddenly and held him at arm’s length. Hunk was now glaring through his tears. Lance would have felt very guilty about whatever it was he’d apparently done wrong if he could actually remember what exactly that was.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Hunk said as he shook him with a little more force than was strictly necessary in Lance’s opinion. Was that his brain rattling around up there? “I’m serious, do you know how worried we were? Do you know how much stress baking I have been doing? The kitchen is a _mess_ , Lance. It’s a war zone.”

Lance looked around the infirmary for help and spotted Keith leaning up against one of the other pods, smirking at the whole display like some kind of jerk. Other than that though, the room was empty. There would be no help.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” he said and swatted at Hunk’s arms until he was forced to stop shaking Lance and guide him over to a nearby chair. Keith pushed himself off the healing pod and came closer, his smirk slipping away to be replaced by a frown.

“You don’t remember?” he asked, sounding worried. Lance scowled at him. While his obvious concern made Lance’s chest go a little tight with some nameless feeling, it was also not an answer.

“Uh, no. That’s why I’m asking.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. All of his senses had finally come back online and he was now noticing that the whole room smelled like something was burning. He looked around for smoke, but there was nothing. “And why does it smell like someone melted a tupperware container in here?”

Keith and Hunk exchanged confused glances. Hunk started to sniff at the air then turned back to Lance looking even more confused and now slightly suspicious.

“It smells normal in here, dude. I mean, sort of like a hospital, but definitely not tupperware.” His eyebrows were all scrunched up like he was trying to work out a confusing math problem. “Are you trying to distract me from giving you a lecture? Because it’s definitely not going to work. Actually, I’m going to get Pidge. She’s gonna want in on this.”

Lance groaned loudly. This was going nowhere and he could feel a headache building, pulsing at his temples to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

“I’m not-“ But Hunk was already halfway out the door. “Hey, don’t leave before you answer my questions! Hunk! _Hunk!_ ”

“You really don’t remember, do you?” Keith asked. He took the seat beside Lance and leaned in to rest his elbows on his knees. At this distance, Lance could just barely make out the smattering of freckles dusted across the bridge of Keith’s nose. Which was a stupid thing to be noticing when his head hurt this much.

“How many times do I have to say no before someone believes me?” Lance sighed, slumping down onto the table and burying his face in his arms. Blocking out the light actually helped a little bit.

“Well, what’s the last thing you _do_ remember?”

Lance thought back and tried to mentally retrace his steps for a moment. “We were going to this planet. I think Allura called it Arasippi. And I remember I said, ‘Is it anything like Mississippi?’ and Allura said, ‘Miss who?’ and we all laughed.”

He could actually feel the power of Keith’s glare boring through his skull.

“Anyway me and Pidge and Hunk were all trying to get through this massive jungle to find the distress beacon the castle picked up on and then…” And then nothing. It was as if his brain had run out of film. The memory ended. Lance picked his head up out of his arms. Keith was staring at him and frowning even harder than before. Lance strategically did not bring up that he was definitely going to get wrinkles by the time he was twenty if he kept frowning so much.

Keith let the silence linger for a while and Lance took it as a challenge so he didn’t speak either. Then, with a sigh, Keith said, “You guys were attacked by an alien monster. You sacrificed yourself so it wouldn’t get Hunk and Pidge.”

Oh.

Well, that explained Hunk’s anger. Lance looked down at the table where his arms were folded and tried to bury the acid-like feeling of shame burning a path up his throat. “I guess you guys had to rally together to save me again, huh?”

“You do make a pretty good damsel in distress,” Keith said. His voice didn’t have any bite in it, but it still stung Lance’s pride. Of course he didn’t get it. Keith always did everything right. He even made messing up look cool. Lance’s shoulders tensed and he glared into the crux of his arm.

Apparently Keith noticed because the next thing he said was, “Wait. That’s not- That’s not what I meant.”

The pain in Lance’s head suddenly increased and ripped a pained gasp from his lungs. He pushed back in his chair and glared at Keith. “Just forget it, okay? It doesn’t matter.”

Lance had to get out of there. That was all he wanted. It was too hot and there was something burning and the lights were too bright. He got up and shoved Keith’s hand away when he almost stumbled on his unstable legs.

“Lance, hold on,” Keith was saying. “The others are going to want to see you. We were- they were all worried about you.”

“Tell them I’m tired and I’m going to my room to sleep off the cryofreeze,” Lance said with a shrug as he made his way to the door. Keith made an aborted noise like he wanted to say something more, but Lance was already heading down the hallway.

He didn’t see anyone on his way to his room and when he got there he immediately turned off all the lights. Like before, the absence of light seemed to relieve some of the pain. He took a deep breath in and leaned back against his door. His head had settled just a little, as had his emotions, but everything still felt raw and tender. Sweat was collecting at the small of his back and across his chest, plastering his clothes to his body and making him shiver as the temperature seemed to drop drastically. He needed a shower badly, but the thought of trudging into the bathroom and standing under the spray of water brought on a sudden bleary exhaustion that hung heavily just beneath his eyes.

Lance stripped in the dark, throwing the healing pod suit he’d been wearing into the corner, and then putting on a clean pair of boxers and a large t-shirt. When he slid underneath his blanket he closed his eyes tightly and inhaled.

His sheets smelled like burning plastic.


	3. Infection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long but I had to keep rewriting at least a third of it until I was completely satisfied. I think I underestimated just how long this fic was going to be, which means the suffer train is just now leaving the station and everyone on Team Voltron's got a ticket.

When Lance appeared for breakfast the next morning, Hunk was torn between a feeling of relief and the twist of anxiety that hadn’t ever truly gone away since they’d left the jungle planet they almost lost Lance on. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and what appeared to be a permanent crease between his eyebrows. Hunk had seen him like this a few times before back at the Garrison, before a test when he’d had to stay up all night to cram. He was grinning wide and chatting with Coran from where he sat in his usual place between Hunk and Keith and it should have been like any other morning. That was clearly what Lance was going for at least.

Except Hunk couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong and it constantly tugged at the corners of his attention every time he looked at Lance as they ate. He’d skipped dinner the night before and when Hunk had gone to his room with left-overs all he’d gotten was a quiet, muffled dismissal. Now he looked like he hadn’t even slept at all the night before. The way his skin pulled tight around the corners of his eyes and lips, Hunk was almost certain he hadn't even exfoliated this morning. Lance was covering it all up well with a smile that would have fooled anyone if they hadn’t already known him for years, but Hunk knew something was wrong, and even worse, Lance was trying to hide it, which meant it was serious. Hunk had found out a long time ago that Lance would complain the loudest about small annoyances and then turn around and cover up anything serious before anyone had time to be worried about him.

Hunk sighed into his food goo, then felt a sharp kick to his shin from across the table. Pidge was glaring at him from across the table, her lips pursed as she stared him down. She discreetly pointed her spoon at Lance, who was busy practically inhaling his own serving of space goo, and raised one questioning eyebrow in his direction. Clearly she wasn’t buying his act either, which was a relief because Hunk had been beginning to worry he was going crazy. He gave her a shrug in response and mouthed the word, ‘Later’ at her.

Shiro entered last, hair damp and a towel hanging loose around his neck, looking like he’d just come from a shower. Hunk had heard him giving one of the Altean training bots a beating on the training deck when he’d been making his way to the dining room earlier. “Lance,” he said, smiling and clapping his hand on Lance’s shoulder as he made his way to his seat near the end of the table. “It’s good to see you up and awake again.”

“Thanks, Shiro. Actually, I should probably be thanking all of you. I heard you had to get me out of trouble again,” Lance said and even managed to look sheepish.

“Of course, man. Not like we were gonna just leave you down there with Mr. Big and Slimy,” Hunk nudged him with his elbow until Lance turned to nudge him right back, grinning again.

“Yeah, something tells me he didn’t bring me down there to party,” Lance said, and was it Hunk’s imagination or had some of the color drained from his face? “Now, if you could all stop making me risk my life for you, that would be great. I think if I spend any more time in the healing pod you’re going to have to start calling me Sleeping Beauty.”

Pidge snorted out a laugh. “You don’t think that title should maybe go to the actual princess in the room?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow. Is this another one of your Earth legends?” said Allura. Soon, the conversation turned into explaining Earth fairytales to the two Alteans at the table, but Hunk noticed that Lance stayed mostly silent beside him.

“Hey, are you feeling alright?” Hunk asked him quietly, seemingly snapping him out of a staring contest with the now empty bowl in front of him.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just kind of tired. Weird dreams last night, you know how it is.” Lance absentmindedly pushed his spoon around the edge of the bowl and now Hunk could definitely tell that he’d grown paler since he’d walked in. 

“Maybe you should skip training today, take some time to catch a few more hours of sleep,” Hunk suggested, bringing up his hand to rest a palm on Lance’s shoulder. The violent flinch away from the touch that Lance gave him in return, his head snapping up to look at Hunk with wide, red rimmed eyes, sent a sting of hurt like needles through Hunk's chest. But Lance was quick to apologize.

“Sorry. I’m kind of a mess this morning.” Lance tried to laugh, but Hunk could see the way his jaw clenched around it. “I’ll be fine though. Can’t afford to take a day off when we’ve got a universe to defend, right?”

“Sure, but you’re not exactly going to be in any shape to defend anything if you faint on the training deck.” Hunk could see out of his peripherals that Pidge was staring at them now, chewing her food thoughtfully as she listened. 

“Oh come, Hunk. At least call it passing out. I’m not some swooning lady in a telenovela.”

Hunk sighed and put down his utensils to give Lance his full attention. If anything, it seemed to make Lance tense up even more. This was really not the reassuring conversation Hunk had been hoping to have with Lance. “Call it whatever you want, man. I still think you should take the day off.”

“I said I’m _fine_ ,” Lance snapped, drawing the attention of the rest of the table, and he looked almost as surprised as Hunk did that he’d said it with so much heat.

Lance swayed away from him and got to his feet, knocking his chair back in the process as the conversation around the table went silent. Lance’s grimace was just a quick flash of lightning across his face before he smiled confidently. “Listen guys, I know I’m pretty, but all this staring has got to stop.”

“I think we’re all just worried that you’re going to puke all over the table,” Keith said, his voice even.  

“Well, if I do, I’ll know who to aim for,” Lance shot back with a glare in his direction. 

“Lance,” Shiro admonished gently. “If you’re not feeling well, you should go back to your room and get some rest.”

Hunk saw Lance's throat bob as he swallowed heavily and gave a bitter smile to the rest of the the table before nodding. “Okay. Sure. You guys know where to find me if you need me,” he said, and started heading towards the door.

“Hold on,” Hunk said, starting to get up. Angry with him or not, Hunk would feel a lot better if he saw Lance get to his room safely with his own eyes. “Let me go with-“ But Lance turned around, walking backwards out the door and pointing at him.

“Sit down, you big lump. Shiro already called dibs on being the mother hen of the group, we don’t need two.” And then he disappeared down the hall.

With a defeated sigh, Hunk sat back down and stared dejectedly at his food goo, which stared dejectedly right back.

“I am _not_ the mother hen,” Shiro said with feeling. 

* * *

 

 

As Lance made his way back to his room, he found himself regretting eating everything he had at breakfast. At the time he’d felt famished, he hadn’t even tasted the food goo going down as he swallowed it. But now it felt like cement in his stomach. And that hot, stifling feeling from last night had come back as soon as he’d finished his food and then only gotten worse as time went on. Now it was burning quickly through his veins and radiating off his skin like a fever. He felt dizzy with it, so much so that he had to sit down for a moment or risk losing his balance.

“Please don’t let this be some kind of space flu,” he mumbled, leaning his head back against the walls of the castle-ship. He closed his eyes, just for a moment and tried to pull himself together. 

When he opened his eyes again, his view had drastically shifted to the side and the lights seemed to have brightened. It was disorientating and confusing for a moment before he realized he was now laying on his side on the floor. “Quiznack,” he cursed, pushing himself up and to his feet. Had he blacked out for a moment? He hadn’t even felt himself move. The thought that he should go back to the dining room and tell the others something was wrong crossed his mind. Sure, it would be embarrassing, returning after his little outburst, but it'd be even more embarrassing if they found him unconscious in the middle of the floor, not even able to make it to his own room by himself. 

Lance looked towards the direction he’d come from and had only taken a few steps forward when a wave of emotion hit him so hard he doubled over with it, a retching, choking noise ripping from his throat. _Don’t go back there._ The thought, feeling foreign and out of place as it bounced around inside his skull, was accompanied by a sense of dread, a sense that if he went back there something terrifying and awful would happen. Distantly, Lance knew that wasn’t right, wasn’t logical, but that didn’t matter. The feeling was like a physical barrier keeping him from moving forward. He couldn’t go back, if it was the last thing he did, he couldn’t go back.

Lance’s breathing was coming in sharp gasps now as he stumbled away from the dining room, trying to get as far away from it as possible. His room couldn’t be that far off, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember where it was in the castle. How long had he been walking for anyway? What hallways was he in?

“Told you, Hunk,” he said to no one as he took a random turn and followed the hallway down as far as it would take him. “Wouldn’t be lost if the hallways were color coded.”

At some point, Lance reached a small stairwell built onto the end of a hallway that was otherwise a dead end. There was a plaque posted just to the side of it, written in Altean symbols that Lance still couldn’t comprehend. Even if he could read the language his vision had gone blurry, like he was swimming in murky water. He tried to remember why he was there: hadn’t he been trying to go somewhere? The answer had to be at the bottom of that staircase.

As it turned out, when Lance finally did make it to the bottom the only thing he found was a room filled to the brim with storage crates. Some of the crates looked recently disturbed so Coran must have been down here taking stock at one point or another over the last few weeks, but otherwise it was empty. Lance stumbled over through the rows of crates, making his way to the back of the large room, his body seemingly switched over to auto-pilot. He kept thinking that this was probably not where he was meant to be—hadn’t he been trying to find his bedroom? But the air was cool down here and it soothed his feverish skin as he skimmed his palm along the wall.

A quick nap here couldn’t hurt anything, could it? _Just a short rest_ , his brain supplied in that same foreign way it had before, only now it was softer, gentler. It reminded Lance a little bit of talking to Blue, and the comparison calmed him as the exhaustion hit like a punch to the solar plexus. Last night had been so strange, dreaming of Keith’s lion spitting out fire into his face in the dark, and that ear-splitting shrieking that rang in his ears long after he’d woken up. A little sleep would do him good, just like Hunk had said. Just like the strangely shaped thoughts were saying. He sank down to the ground, squeezing himself into a corner between a crate and the wall. Something wet was dripping down his face and he had just enough energy to touch his fingers to his lips, pulling them away to find them smeared with blood. Lance looked down to find red was staining his shirt too. His nose must have been bleeding for a while.

It mattered less than it probably should have to Lance. It would stop eventually anyway. He leaned his head back against the wall and let his eyes flutter shut. The thing inside his head made a please sound that followed him into his dreams. 

* * *

 

 

Keith had been expecting to be the last one to arrive for afternoon training when he made his way to the training deck, but when he entered both Lance and Hunk were missing. He frowned and headed over to where Pidge and Shiro were waiting, suited up in their paladin gear and talking amicably.

“Where are the others?” Keith asked as he approached, interrupting them.

“Oh, hey Keith, there you are. We sent Hunk to go get you and Lance since you were both late. We thought you might be together,” Shiro said as he turned to greet him. Keith shook his head.

“I was checking on how Red was doing after our last battle with that alien monster and I lost track of time. I haven’t seen Lance since this morning.” 

“Maybe he’s still in his room sleeping. He did look pretty exhausted at breakfast,” Pidge said, although now there was a furrow to her brow.

“I really, _really_ hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Hunk said as he came through the door and they all turned to look at him. “But he’s not in his room either. I was kind of hoping he’d be here with you guys by the time I came back.”

“So he’s missing,” Keith said, deadpan. He crossed both arms across his chest and fought down the wave of irritation building up inside of him. “Again.” Lance should have been in his room resting, but knowing him he’d probably gotten himself in more trouble. It was starting to affect the team and holding them all back and—Keith’s hands twisted into fists at his side.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet,” Shiro said reasonably. “Lance could be anywhere. It’s not like this is the first time he’s tried to skip out on training.”

“I really don’t think that’s what this is,” Hunk responded quietly. Shiro sighed, not unkindly.

“Okay, let’s go see if Allura can track down where he is in the castle.”

Ten minutes later, they all found themselves on the observation deck, surrounding Allura as she typed in commands meant for the castle’s security system. Her fingers stilled momentarily and she blinked rapidly in a mild state of shock.

“This is quite strange,” she whispered, staring at a certain screen on her control panel that was giving her a blinking message written in Altean.

“What is it?” Pidge asked. Allura didn’t even glance up from her work, looking more and more alarmed as the moment wore on.

“I can’t find him,” she said, looking as if she hated the words as soon as they left her mouth. “It’s as if he’s not even in the castle anymore, but that’s impossible.”

“I had to save him from getting sucked out of an airlock once, I’m not sure if impossible is the right word to use,” Keith said, despite the nearly overwhelming urge to storm out and go looking for Lance himself. The castle had been wrong before. It was ten thousand years old, it made mistakes.

“No, I’ve checked the logs on all the air locks. None of them have been opened today. In fact, there’s no record of anyone or anything leaving the castle since you all arrived back. Lance has to be on board.” Despite the confidence in her voice, Keith thought Allura still sounded like she was trying to convince herself of this fact, rather than the paladins around her.

“Alright, so we do this the old fashioned way then,” Shiro said. “Let’s split up and search. If no one’s found him in an hour, we regroup here and think of another strategy. Got it?”

They all nodded in an affirmative.  

Half an hour later found Keith in the lower sectors of the castle, his helmet on so he could communicate with the others in case any of them found Lance. So far he’d mostly been left alone with his thoughts, which usually would have suited him just fine. But now all he could think about was the way Lance had been acting ever since he’d stepped out of the healing pod yesterday and the apprehensive feeling tightening in his chest told him that something was very wrong here.

There was also something about what Allura had said earlier that kept coming back to him. She’d told them that she couldn’t find a single trace of Lance in the castle, even though she’d run almost half a dozen internal checks to confirm that the scanners were still working. The security system in the ship could find them anyone on board, as long as that someone wasn’t Lance. It was almost like what had happened back on that jungle planet, except how could that be? Keith was about to speak into his comm and ask Allura if she was sure they’d wiped out all of the traces of Sendek’s corrupted crystal from the castle when he spotted something on the floor near his feet.

Crouching down, Keith examined the dark stain further and immediately saw that it was blood. He looked down the hall and saw that there was a path of it leading around the corner. The fact that the stains couldn’t be more than a few hours old and the proximity of them to Lance’s room all added up to one answer, and it wasn’t a good one.

Keith followed the trail down a winding path of hallways until he turned down one that looked to be a dead end. He was confused for a moment until he saw that near the end of the hallway there was a small staircase leading down. When he approached it he turned on his comm.

“Guys, I think I found where Lance went. There’s a trail of blood leading down to the storage bays. I think he might be hurt.” And Keith had about a hundred questions on how that had come to be. His mind raced with thoughts of intruders that could have struck Lance down as soon as he was separated from the rest of the group and stashed him somewhere out of the way. That would explain why the scanners weren’t—

No. He had to stop thinking like that. Lance always made it out alive. That was practically part of his style: barely managing to find his way out of danger by the skin of his teeth. Allura had said a few days ago that Lance was the type to always have confidence in his friends, so Keith had to put that same confidence in him. Lance would be fine. He had to be.

“We’re all on our way towards your location now, Keith. Be careful,” Shiro responded. Keith knew the others would be there any moment, but he wasn’t going to stand around and just wait for them to arrive.

As he carefully made his way down the stairs, Keith materialized his bayard in his hand, just in case. The room was cold and barely lit since it’s only use was for storage, but Keith had no problem following the dotted trail of blood through the stacks of crates, his heart rising up in his throat at what he might find with every step.

He finally came across Lance tucked away in a corner and felt something snap inside him, leaking out cold dread into his veins, when he saw the blood smeared all over Lance’s shirt. Keith dropped to his knees in front of him, his bayard abandoned and his hands shaking, and then made a small, wrecked sound of relief when he saw that most of the blood had come from a nasty looking bloody nose and not from some wound on his chest. He took his helmet off and left it on the floor by his bayard, moving in as close as the cramped space allowed him to. 

“Lance,” Keith said as he reached out and brushed the sweat matted hair away from Lance’s forehead. His skin was burning to the touch, but his eyes slid open when Lance heard his name being called.

“Hey, Keith. What are you doing here?” Keith gave him an annoyed look.

“I should be asking you that, idiot.”

Lance had the audacity to laugh and Keith frowned harder. Then he felt a hand cup the side of his face. “You’re so cute when you’re grumpy,” Lance whispered. Keith reeled back and Lance’s hand dropped to his lap. He frowned down at it sadly.

“You’re delirious,” Keith said. That, at least, was the truth, if the the way Lance was slurring his words was anything to go by. 

“Yeah,” Lance agreed and suddenly grinned at him. “Don’t worry, I like this look on you too. You should give it to me more often.”

“What look?” Keith asked, incredulous.

“I don’t know. Sort of a mix between confused and hopeful. Like you’re scared, but you’re not going to run away.” Lance was looking down at his own chest now, bringing his hand up curiously to the large stain of blood.

“You are so out of it right now,” Keith said and caught Lance’s wrist in his hand, bringing it away from the blood on Lance’s shirt for some reason he couldn’t begin to understand at that moment.  

“I know.” Lance said, his gaze traveling back up to look at Keith. His pupils were dilated to the point that there was only a sliver of his dark blue irises left. “I kind of feel like that time me and my cousin broke into my uncle’s liquor cabinet when I was fourteen.”

“That’s probably because you have a fever,” Keith said quietly, still awkwardly holding Lance’s wrist. Lance seemed to realize this too and brought his other hand up to hold on to the crook of Keith’s arm, almost like he was using Keith to anchor himself to the moment. He looked frightened suddenly, as if he'd just now realized something very important. It was a look Keith had never seen on Lance’s face and it made some part of his brain light up, made him want to pick his bayard up off the ground and cut down whatever was making him look like that.

“The burning smell won’t go away, Keith.” His voice was a whisper. Before Keith could think up an adequate response, he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Keith? Lance? Are you guys down here?” That was Pidge. She’d gotten to them first.

“We’re here,” Keith called back. “I found Lance, but something’s wrong. He’s delirious and running a fever.” Lance’s grip on him tightened and Keith turned his attention back to him.

“Keith, buddy,” he was saying in a desperate whisper, like he had to get it out before Pidge got close enough to hear them. “You gotta listen to me. Don’t put me back in the healing pod. Please. Something bad will happen. I-I can’t go back in there. I can't go back to sleep for that long. Please.” Lance made a choked off sound like his throat was closing up.

“Lance, what-“

“ _Please_.” Lance was begging through gritted teeth and Keith could do nothing but stare. Then Pidge was there and he heard a pair of heavier footsteps that must have been Shiro and Hunk.

“Okay,” Keith said, ignoring the bewildered look Pidge was giving them both. “Okay, I promise.” And that seemed to be all Lance needed to hear because a second later his grip relaxed and his body slumped against the wall. His eyes shut and he was out cold once again.

“Alright, what is going on?” Pidge said, voicing the question on all of their minds.

* * *

 

 

No one was mentioning how late it was as they all sat in the infirmary, surrounding the cot Lance was laying in with a cool rag resting on his forehead.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. What if putting him back in the healing pod makes it worse,” Keith said, though he really didn’t know what to think at this point. He just couldn’t get that look Lance had given him out of his head.

“I’m afraid I have to agree, Princess,” Coran said. “These healing pods were primarily meant to heal Alteans, and while they can be calibrated to accommodate other species, prolonged exposure could cause a slight imbalance in one’s immune system. Putting him back in now could have some serious repercussions if this is indeed what’s happening to him.”

Keith watched Allura bite at her bottom lip thoughtfully, looking down at Lance and then back to the healing pod he’d only stepped out of one day prier.

“Perhaps you’re right, but we are going to need answers as to why the ships scanners were not able to detect Lance. If he was only in the cargo bay, we should have picked up on his presence with no problem.”

“Maybe something’s going on with the ship,” Pidge said and Keith nodded in agreement. “The scanners _have_ been acting up lately.”

Allura shook her head. “I’ve run a full system’s diagnostic and everything has come up fine.”

“So maybe it’s a problem with Lance,” Hunk said, and they all turned to him, confused.

“What do you mean, Hunk?” said Shiro.

“Well, okay, we’ve all been thinking the problem with the scanners and the problem with Lance are two separate issues, right?” he said, looking down at where Lance was lying with his lips pressed into a thin line. “But what if the scanners malfunctioning and Lance getting sick are two symptoms of the same problem.”

“We never did find out what happened to him when he was in that cavern,” Pidge said. She was nodding along as she quickly caught on to Hunk’s logic. “Maybe that giant alien gave him something. The same kind of something that knocked out our signals on Arasippi.”

“I’ve never heard of any disease that could do that,” Coran said slowly, rubbing his chin with the palm of his hand.

“Yeah, but it’s been ten thousand years for you guys, who knows what diseases have evolved and what new ones have popped up in that time.” Hunk had gone into full out science mode now, and Keith could feel the conversation shrink down to just him, Pidge, Coran, and Allura as they started coming up with theories. Feeling like he had nothing important to add to the conversation, Keith sat down in a chair beside Lance’s cot and was shortly joined by Shiro.

“Hey, I know you’re worried, but we’ll figure out what’s wrong with Lance,” he said, his hand warm where it rested on Keith’s shoulder.

“Who says I’m worried?” Keith grumbled. It sounded childish even to his own ears. Of course he was worried. Lance had gone and looked at him like he was drowning and Keith was the only one there to pull him out of the water. How could anyone not be worried after something like that?

Shiro gave him a sympathetic smile and took his hand off Keith’s shoulder to switch out the cloth on Lance’s head for a newer one. “It’s okay to be worried about your teammates, Keith. That’s not a weakness.”

Keith felt himself go tense. How was it fair that Shiro could see through everything he did until he got to the root of the issue? It had always been like this, even before the Kerberos mission. Keith had found it incredibly aggravating back then and he did now too. He decided not to dignify Shiro’s statement with a response, not that it seemed to bother Shiro at all.

“Why don’t you go to bed? I’m sure the others have got this covered.”

Keith frowned harder. “Aren’t you supposed to watch people with fevers so it doesn’t get any worse when they sleep?” he said, genuinely unsure.

“Are you volunteering?” And now Shiro was smiling even wider. He probably thought this counted as bonding. Keith shrugged and looked away instead of answering.

“How about we take shifts? I’m sure Hunk will want first watch, he can come and get you in a couple hours to take over. Then you can come and get me.” It sounded more than reasonable when Shiro said it like that, though everything had a tendency to sound reasonable when Shiro was the one saying it.

“Whatever,” Keith said, doing his best impression of someone who didn’t care either way what happened. He stalked out of the infirmary with his hands shoved in his pockets and tried to put the whole thing out of his mind long enough to get some sleep.

* * *

 

It couldn’t have been more than two hours later when a knock on Keith’s door woke him. He sat up in bed, rubbing at his eyes as his vision cleared and the lights slowly came on. Keith hadn’t expected to get much sleep that night, what with everything that had been happening, but he’d clearly underestimated his exhaustion because the moment his head had hit the pillow he’d been out like someone had flipped a switch.

“Hold on, Hunk, I’m coming,” he called out blearily, getting to his feet and finding a shirt on the floor that to pull on. The bones in his back popped and groaned as he stretched his arms above his head before going to open his door. He'd been expecting Hunk on the other side, coming to switch out shifts with him like Shiro had said, but was only greeted by Lance's cheery face. He was glancing from Keith to the inside of Keith’s room like he might push right past him to get inside.

“Uh,” Keith said eloquently. That part of his brain that processed surprised apparently was not awake yet. 

“Hello to you too,” Lance said, grinning. He didn't look any better than he had at breakfast this morning, though he seemed less affected now. “Are you going to let me in or am I going to stand out here all night, Mullet Head? Or maybe I should start calling you Bed Head because you are seriously rocking some major-“

Keith cut him off quickly, scowling and patting down his messy hair. “What are you even doing up? I thought Hunk was watching you.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously and he gave Lance a quick once over. “I thought you had a fever.”

Lance sighed heavily. “First of all, you guys should probably know that Hunk is really bad at staying up passed his bed time. I was his roommate for two years and do you know how many times I got him to stay up passed midnight? The answer is one time and that was only because Shiro crashed an alien space ship on the Garrison’s front lawn.”

“And second of all?” Keith prompted, but decided that having this conversation while standing in the doorway was tiring. He turned to let Lance in and closed the door behind him once he’d stepped inside. Lance took no time making himself at home as was evident by the way he flopped onto Keith’s bed and rolled around on it like the golden retriever puppy Keith had sometimes imagined having as a child. Keith was caught between a warm, bright feeling in his chest that was quickly spreading to his face and mild annoyance at having his privacy violated like this.

“Fever broke, I guess. I still feel kind of weird, but I’m not bleeding out of my nose anymore.” Lance picked his head up from where he had previously been mashing his face into Keith’s pillow, probably in an attempt to pass along whatever alien illness he had. “Will you please come sit down already. You’re making this weird.”

“ _I’m_ making this weird?” Keith said, his voice rising an octave higher than he would have liked it. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.” Lance hadn't been telling him a lot of things lately. Like why he had been hidden away in the ship's cargo bay, or why he had latched on to Keith's arm and begged him to not let the others put him back in a healing pod.

Lance pressed his lips together and looked away before pushing his face back into Keith’s pillow and mumbling something Keith couldn’t make out. He came closer to the bed, kneeling by Lance’s head and poking him hard in the cheek.

“What was that?” he said and hoped his glare was strong enough for Lance to feel. In response, Lance lifted his head up just enough so Keith could hear him speak without any interference. 

 “I said, I don’t know. I just wanted—“ There was a pause and he turned his head to look at Keith, who was suddenly very aware how close their faces were in this position. “To see you.”

Keith fell back so fast a shooting pain ran up his spine as his tailbone collided with the floor. A muffled giggling sound was coming from between Lance’s fingers as he tried not to openly laugh at Keith. He was doing a poor job of it.

“Why would you—“ But Keith couldn’t finish. The tips of his ears were burning hot and his stupid heart was beating much faster than it should have been. It was like the very opposite of being in a fight, where everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Here, now, everything was moving too quickly and Keith couldn't find a way to stop it. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to. Lance reached out from where he lay on the bed and offered Keith his hand.

And what was he supposed to do with that? There were about a dozen things happening here and Keith couldn’t identify a single one, couldn’t figure out a single thing he was feeling either except warm and nervous and very afraid all at once. Keith sized up Lance’s hand like he was sizing up an opponent.

“Scared?” Lance asked, wiggling his fingers, trying to provoke him.

“I’m not scared,” Keith whispered back. He slipped his hand into Lance’s and let himself be pulled up onto the bed. They had to maneuver around so they could both fit, their knees knocking together painfully as their legs tangled in the rumbled sheets and their elbows bumping. Eventually though they managed to find a comfortable position with Lance pressed up against the wall and his hand laying between them, still holding onto Keith’s. It was their only point of contact.

“Your heart’s beating really fast,” Lance said after a moment of awkward quiet, and Keith realized his fingers were hovering just above the pulse point on Keith’s wrist. He quickly moved his own fingers to match.

“So’s yours,” he said.

Lance scoffed. “I’m in bed with a guy who sleeps with a knife _and_ I don’t know where that knife is right now. Who could blame me for being a little nervous?” For some reason, the words make Keith want to laugh. Maybe the entire situation made him want to laugh. Or run very far away.

“It’s under the pillow,” he said, shrugging with one shoulder and wondering what was going to come next. Lance’s voice was quiet when he spoke again.

“Of course it is.” He inched closer carefully, sliding his other hand between them too until he was playing with the hem of Keith’s shirt, twisting the soft fabric between his fingers. His eyes never left Keith’s so Keith didn’t look away either. “Don’t stab me, okay?”

The words barely registered because then Lance was slipping his hand underneath his shirt and resting his hand on Keith’s hip, tugging him closer until there was just a few inches between them. Keith’s breath hitched and his grip on Lance’s hand tightened.

“What are we-“

And that’s when Keith noticed that Lance’s fingers were moving. No, not moving. Spelling something out.

D-O-N-T-T-A-L-K

The words Keith had been about to say died on his tongue and his eyebrows shot up. His mouth snapped close with a sharp click of his teeth. 

I-T-H-E-A-R-S-W-H-A-T-I-H-E-A-R

Keith's heart was still stuttering in his chest, but now it wasn't because of the warmth of Lance's skin on his. He was still staring into Lance’s eyes and now he could see something else in them. Lance was terrified. Lance had been terrified this entire time. 

I-N-E-E-D-H-E-L-P

Keith's hand was steady as he ghosted it across Lance's chest, feeling it shake underneath his fingers. He stopped at his collarbone so he could write his own message into Lance's skin. 

O-K-A-Y and then D-O-N-T-W-O-R-R-Y and then Y-O-U-A-R-E-N-T-A-L-O-N-E.

 

 


	4. Infestation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'd just like to thank everyone for their positive feedback and their comments. Whenever I need any inspiration I just go in my inbox and cry a little over the nice things you guys say. But anyway, shit kind of hits the fan this chapter and I hope you guys enjoy... that.

Keith didn’t know why he had spelled those things into Lance’s skin, told him not to worry, when he only barely knew what was going on himself. Lance had just looked so sacred, and even now his eyes were searching Keith’s, as if he was trying to determine if any of this was real or if he could trust the touch of Keith’s fingers on his neck. It had been instinctual for Keith to reach out and try to convey anything that would make him stop looking like that. He went to draw his hand back, suddenly feeling like he had no right to be touching Lance there, but Lance’s hand came up as quick as a car crash and pressed his hand back into his still too-warm skin. Keith wasn’t sure if he was warm because of the panic that was still burning bright in his eyes or because he’d been lying before about his fever breaking.

“Don’t ruin it, dude,” Lance said, his smile teasing. And if his voice shook just slightly Keith wasn’t going to mention it. Lance’s hand slipped down between them when he looked sure that Keith wasn’t going to try and pull away again, sliding back up under Keith’s shirt, and in spite of everything, Keith’s mutinous body still shivered at the touch.

“You look awful,” Keith said as he started to trace letters into Lance’s neck, just below the bolt of his jaw now.

D-O-E-S-I-T-S-E-E

Lance made a noise that was half outrage and half a mockery of the sound of his laugh. “Wow, you’re a real charmer. See if I ever crawl in bed with you again.” His fingers moved their way across Keith’s skin.

I-D-O-N-T-K-N-O-W

It was hard to contain the sigh of frustration that Keith wanted nothing than more to breath into Lance’s face. He let his hand go slack around Lance’s neck as he tried to think of a question that would give him the information he needed, but there was no getting around the fact that tracing words into each other’s skin wasn’t going to be the most efficient way to communicate.

“You look tired,” Keith amended quietly after a few moments of just staring while Lance bit nervously at his lower lip. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

The muscles underneath his hand tensed so quickly he thought they might snap. Lance laughed again in that way that sounded like someone was holding a gun to his head. “I am _so_ not tired,” he said, like he couldn't get the words out fast enough, his fingers digging into Keith’s skin before he started to spell things out frantically while he talked. “Do you know how much sleeping I’ve been doing lately? The answer is way too much.”

G-E-T-S-W-O-R-S-E-W-H-E-N-I-S-L-E-E-P

“Alright,” Keith said hurriedly, because now Lance was spelling things out so fast that Keith wasn't able to catch them. The shadows under his eyes looked almost purple against his brown skin and the way he was clutching Keith’s other hand—the one he hadn’t let go of this whole time—it was as if he thought Keith was going to try and leave. “It’s okay. You don’t have to sleep.” 

Lance took a moment to visibly force himself to relax and Keith started pressing letters into his neck again as soon as he thought Lance didn’t look like he was quite so on the edge of crying.

I-L-L-T-E-L-L-T-H-E-O-T-H-E-R-S

Keith tried to keep his gaze reassuring, but he’d never been very good at comforting people. It had always been hard for him to know what they wanted to hear from him and he didn’t have any idea of what could possibly make Lance feel safe again. But he did know that Lance was his friend, that this is what friends did for each other. That Lance had come to him over everyone else that he could have gone to, though he couldn’t guess at the reason why. Keith had never had many friends, he’d never had anything like he did on the team he was on now, and if there was only one thing he was sure of, it was that he would do whatever he could to protect what was his.

W-E-W-I-L-L-H-E-L-P

He caught and held Lance’s gaze, squeezing his hand as hard as he dared, and was rewarded with a smile he’d never seen on Lance’s face before. It was shy and small like a candle flame that was being battered by the wind, still just bright enough to push back the dark.

“Thank you, Keith,” he said, pushing himself closer until his forehead bumped Keith’s, just for a brief moment, and it was probably the most affectionate thing Lance had ever offered him. More than the one armed hugs and the sharp slaps on the back after a battle, this felt intimate. Keith could feel the heat of Lance’s breath on his cheek. For a few seconds, all Keith wanted was to pull him back in and—he wasn’t sure he wanted to know where that thought headed, so he pushed it aside. He didn’t give himself time to figure it out either because those were selfish, stupid feelings to be having with a boy like Lance. Keith sat up in bed, refusing to miss the pressure of Lance’s hand on his hip as it slipped away.

“Come on, if we’re not going to sleep we shouldn’t just lay here,” he said as he got out of bed and crossed the room to his closet. What Keith really wanted to do was take Lance to Allura and demand she take out whatever it was inhabiting Lance’s body, but the problem at hand wasn’t so simple. He had to take his cues from Lance and he clearly didn’t want the thing inside him knowing he knew it was there. They had to be careful, bide their time, and wait until morning when he could get Allura or Coran or even Shiro alone and away from Lance so he could explain the situation without anyone overhearing.

“Oh yeah? What do you have in mind?” Lance sounded almost like he always did when they met new alien creatures for him to flirt with, something in his voice suggesting he already had a couple thoughts on the matter. Keith pretended not to notice. He could still feel the weight of Lance’s hand in his and the path his fingers took across his hip. The thought that everything earlier had all been an excuse to communicate with him without being overheard was a hot coal of embarrassment in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t be mad at Lance, not now at least, but he refused to keep letting himself look like an idiot.  

Keith came back to the bed with a pack of cards to sit across from Lance, who was now leaning back against the wall and hugging Keith’s pillow to his chest. “When you were in the healing pod, Hunk showed me how to play that Altean card game Allura taught you guys. We’re going to play and I’m going to beat you.”

“Oh yeah? Pretty confident for a guy who can’t bluff to save his life.”

One of Keith’s eyes twitched with irritation as he started to shuffle the cards. When he looked up to deal them, Lance was smirking at him. “How would you know whether I can bluff or not?”

“You’re too hot headed not to have any tells,” Lance replied, picking up his hand and studying his cards.

Keith scoffed. “Because you’re all about restraint and composure.”

Lance laughed and his expression grew warm. Keith thought for a moment that he’d succeeded in distracting him just enough that he forgot why he was there in Keith’s bedroom, in the early hours of the morning, playing an alien card game they both only knew half the rules to. “That, and my step-sister paid her way through college dealing cards at a casino,” he said. “I may have lost three months’ worth of allowances to her, but she made sure I knew how to tell when someone was bluffing and when they were hiding cards up their sleeves.”

Keith frowned, glancing down at his own hand. It was a decent one, though if the way Lance was still smirking was anything to go by, his was much better. “I’m not wearing any sleeves,” he grumbled.

They concentrated on playing for a few minutes, sitting in comfortable silence that was only broken by the occasional taunt from Lance as he systematically and metaphorically kicked Keith’s ass. Even Keith had to admit that he couldn’t tell when Lance was bluffing, which was strange, considering what an open book he appeared to be most of the time. But then Lance started to yawn and rest his head back against the wall, his eyes half lidded, and Keith knew he had to get him talking again.

“So your step-sister—“ the words were out of Keith’s mouth before he knew what he wanted to do with them. “You were, uh. You were close?”

Lance gave him a pointed look that could have been a glare if he didn’t also look so exhausted. “We are close. She’s not dead, Keith.”

“I know, I didn’t mean. Whatever. Sorry. Just…“ Keith sighed and then gave up. Lance apparently deemed this as a worthy enough apology though, because he began talking again.

“Her mom married my mom when I was ten and she was sixteen. We didn’t get along very well at first because I was so used to being the oldest sibling, you know?” Keith didn’t know, but he was content to let Lance go on speaking. When it was about his family, Lance never seemed to run out of things to say. His eyes would go to this soft, far-away place that Keith could never manage to follow him to. Keith liked that expression on him best, though he wasn’t sure he’d ever tell Lance that. They both discarded some of their cards, their knees nearly touching as the pile between them grew bigger. Lance continued, still looking down at his hand instead of at Keith.

“I think my problem was that I didn’t want my little brother and sister looking up to her more than they did me. It was really stupid because I had cousins that pretty much looked after all of us like they were our older siblings, but that still didn’t stop me from being a brat to her. I picked fights with her for months before I finally started settling down about it.” Silence filled the air again and Keith looked up to see Lance chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip. For a few fleeting seconds all he did was stare, then he cleared his throat and spoke.

“I think I can relate.”

Lance looked surprised that he’s said anything, almost like he’d forgotten he was there. “Huh?”

“To your sister. The one you were a brat to.” Keith watched him as he tried to scowl through another yawn. It might have been funny in any other situation.

“Yeah, well this brat just beat you at Altean poker,” Lance said, triumphantly throwing his cards down on the bed for Keith to see. Predictably enough, they were much better than the ones Keith was holding. He set his own hand down and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Rematch.”

The bruises beneath Lance’s eyes nearly disappeared beneath his grin. “You’re on.”

* * *

 

 

Keith was a burning star in front of Lance, radiating heat that reminded him of sitting too close to a campfire on late summer nights. 

“It’s too bad we can’t see the stars,” Keith said, his voice hushed as they weaved their way between the trees. They were back on the jungle planet, just the two of them walking alone in the chilling night air. It was nearly impossible to see and so they were careful as they walked, sticking close together as if they might lose each other. Lance looked up to the canopy, but he could only see small glimpses of moonlight through the cracks in the leaves.

“Maybe if we climbed a tree.”

Lance’s suggestion brought a smile to Keith’s face and for a moment he was reminded of Nyma and her carefree laugh—the one Lance hadn’t known was calculated until much later. It looked out of place on Keith. Unnatural. Lance wanted to reach out and wipe it away until it was replaced by the smaller smile Keith only gave him in private moments. Or the one he gave Lance that was more open, but only when he thought Lance couldn’t see. Around them, the jungle was quiet, just like he remembered it being.

“Hey,” Keith said, drawing his attention back towards him. He reached out and took one of Lance’s hands in his. “Follow me.” They weren’t wearing their paladin suits or their jackets so Keith’s hand was pleasantly warm in his own. Lance walked as close as he dared and Keith led him through the jungle. 

“Where are we going?” he asked after a few seconds. Or maybe it had been an hour. It didn’t really matter to Lance because Keith’s hand was still in his and it seemed to be the only warm thing on this entire planet all of a sudden. Why hadn’t they taken their jackets with them?

Nyma looked back at him, her eyes crinkling with mirth. She was taller than him and it hadn’t felt wrong before—in fact that was one of the things he’d initially liked about her-- but now all Lance wanted was someone only slightly shorter, with dark eyes and darker hair. “You’ll see,” She said. “I want it to be a surprise.”

Lance looked down at their joined hands, her yellow-tinted skin turned an almost gold in the shadowy dark. She led him on and on, a pinprick of heat connecting them like an ember dying slowly in a hearth until they reached the edge of the jungle and they were standing before a gaping chasm. It stretched so far that Lance couldn’t tell where it ended and the night sky began.

Hunk and Pidge were there as if they’d been waiting to meet them. They were sitting on the edge of the chasm with their legs dangling into the pit, looking back at Lance over their shoulders. Their eyes and expressions were blank, almost like dolls until they spoke. “Hey, Lance,” Hunk said.

“Hey, Lance,” Pidge said.

The heat was gone and all that was left was a numbing cold, so Lance went to sit between his friends. Together they watched something move beneath the shadows of the chasm, glinting in the pale moonlight.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Lance said. He wanted to look at Hunk, because that was who those words were meant for, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the beckoning glimmers that danced miles below their feet.   

“Don’t worry about it.” Lance could hear the smile in Hunk’s voice rather than see it. He felt him place one cold hand on Lance’s shoulder and then Pidge put both of hers on the opposite one. Seconds passed and the wind howled. Something hang in the balance of that moment, watching and waiting, and then Hunk and Pidge pushed Lance over the edge of the chasm and into the dark. As he fell he expected to hear screaming—his own or someone else’s— but all he heard was the sound of metal banging rhythmically against more metal.

* * *

 

 

Lance awoke with a sudden jerk forward that was accompanied by a strangled yelp from Keith who had, until recently, been sleeping with his head propped up against Lance’s shoulder. He stared up at him, bleary-eyed and still fighting off sleep as the banging sound that had woken Lance up continued. Shiro’s voice rang out, calling Keith’s name, sounding more than a little worried and like he’d been at the other side of the door for some time now. A croaked out, “Oh no,” told Lance that Keith had just realized the same thing Lance had.

They’d been asleep. He didn’t know when it had happened, probably at some early hour of the morning when they’d finally given up on cards and Keith had crawled over to sit beside him while they argued over which Star Wars movie was the best. Keith had gone on some rant about the prequels and Lance had meant to only rest his eyes while he listened.

He didn’t feel any more rested than he had when he drifted off, if anything he felt even worse. His skin was dry and stretched too thin across his aching muscles, like he didn’t fit in his own body anymore. And there was a pressure behind his eyes that he knew would be a headache within the hour. But it had been like this ever since he’d stepped out of the healing pod, ever since that alien had—

He sucked in a sharp breath and covered his mouth with his hand, maybe to keep from vomiting, maybe to keep down the half-hysterical laugh he could feel bubbling up in his throat. It had gotten worse, he could _feel_ it, feel it in his bones. It was getting stronger because he’d fallen asleep, he’d let his guard down and now it had wrapped itself up in something else inside him. It was going to keep on taking and taking every time Lance closed his eyes until there was nothing left of him.

“Keith, are you in there?” Shiro called again, loud enough to startle Lance out of his spiral. Apparently, Keith had recovered enough to slip out of bed and cross the room without so much as a backwards glance at Lance. When he opened the door, Shiro nearly fell into him.

“Oh,” he said, straightening up and taking in Keith, and then Lance who was still on Keith’s bed. Shiro’s eyes widened. “ _Oh.”_

“Uh, sorry. I know I was supposed to wake you up last night to look after Lance, but he…” Keith trailed off, looking back at Lance. “We wound up here.”

Shiro flicked his eyes back and forth between them, clearly confused, but when he caught Lance’s gaze he apparently saw something that made him swallow any questions he might have had. “Right uh, that’s fine, I guess. Would have appreciated a heads up though. We still can’t track Lance with any of the castle’s scanners. I thought he’d gotten lost again.”

“Wait, what?” Lance said, launching himself off of Keith’s bed. “What do you mean the castle’s scanners can’t track me? What does that mean?” He hadn’t known that. He hadn’t even known the castle could track him to begin with. Well, it did make sense, the whole place was basically the love child of Cinderella’s castle and Frankenstein’s lab. It still felt kind of invasive though, not to mention that now it just couldn’t sense him at all. Lance didn’t know how to feel about that, but it definitely wasn’t relief that was chilling his veins.  

A hand landed solidly on his shoulder and Lance looked up to see Keith peering at him from beneath his bed head. He’d apparently called his name at least twice now, if the look on his face was anything to go by. Lance rubbed at his eyes that still felt bleary, unfocused, and a little itchy from sleep. “Sorry, what?”

“We only found out yesterday that you couldn’t be tracked. It made finding you in the cargo bay pretty hard,” Shiro explained. His gaze was calculating, never leaving Lance as he stood just inside the doorframe. For a fraction of a second, Lance wondered if this is what Sendek felt like when Shiro had watched him so intently when he’d been in one of the castle’s cryopods. Then, between one blink and the next, the look was gone, replaced by one of concern. Lance scrubbed a palm over his eyes again, wishing they’d stop itching already. “The others have some theories, but it’ll be easier to let them explain. We can talk about it over breakfast.”

Shiro motioned for the both of them to follow him, but Lance took a step back instead. It was like an invisible hand had latched onto his spinal column, drawing him back and away from Keith and Shiro. A feeling of dread spread across his clammy skin.

“Actually uh, I think I’m going to take a shower first. I haven’t had the chance since I got all healed up and I can’t go a week without showering like Keith can.”

“How do you even know when I shower?” Keith shot back, clearly offended. Lance felt a flash of gratitude towards him, knowing that even now he could still do this dance with him, that even when Lance could feel his hands trembling at his sides, Keith could still make him feel like things were just a little bit normal. 

“Trust me, buddy, I can smell you coming from two rooms away.”

Before their bickering could continue further though, Shiro stepped between them, his brow furrowed. “No offense, Lance but I’m not sure I want you left alone unsupervised right now. Allura says we need to run some tests immediately after everyone eats so I’d rather you stick with us.”

And just like that the sense of dread and doom kicked up until Lance could barely breath with it. He stumbled back, his eyes darting around for something to defend himself with against—against what? Shiro? No, that was ridiculous. Shiro wouldn’t hurt him, why would he think that? Why was he so terrified? It didn’t make any sense, none of it made any sense.

Then the back of Keith’s head filled Lance’s vision until he could barely see Shiro at all. Keith had pushed Lance behind him and now he was taking Shiro by the arm, trying to lead him out the door. He was saying something, but it was muffled, like Lance was hearing everything from under several feet of water. It didn’t matter though, because they were leaving and with every step they took away from him, it became easier to breath. The last Lance saw of them was Shiro looking back at him from over Keith’s head, his eyes widening in surprise, though he wasn’t fighting Keith’s hold on his arm. For a few seconds after the door closed, all Lance did was stand there, staring but not seeing much of anything as he tried to get his vision to focus.

Lance didn’t know how long it took him to bury the urge to just crawl back into Keith’s bed, close his eyes, and give into the inevitable, but when he finally left Keith’s room and headed towards his own, no one was in the hallway to stop him. His room was exactly how he’d left it, with the lights dim and blankets strewn on the floor. Usually, he would have tried to clean up a little before heading to the bathroom, but now he just couldn’t find the energy or the ability to care. Lance stripped out of his clothes as he went, leaving them on his bathroom floor as he started the shower and tapped at the control panel until the water was as hot as he could make it. Steam filled the room quickly and Lance breathed it in, hoping that it would disperse the smell of burning plastic that now seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

When he stepped into the shower stall the hot water did little to unwind his tense muscles though it did chase away some of the cold that was lurking underneath his skin. After quickly washing his hair, Lance ended up leaning back against the wall and letting the spray wash over him as he stared up at the ceiling, wondering if this was another nightmare he’d wake up from soon. Or maybe this entire thing was just a dream he was having: the chasm, the cold darkness, the parasitic alien that had made its way inside of him.

It had been in the back of his mind, easily ignorable at first, but when Lance had woken up on the floor of the cargo bay with Keith’s face hovering above his, he’d had to confront that fact that something was very wrong with him. Then it had only been a matter of guessing, putting together broken fragments of the scattered dreams he had every time he went to sleep and figuring out the only meaning that made sense. Lance supposed it was also probably some animalistic instinct part of his brain that could tell there was something else hitching a ride inside him, that the sharp ringing in his ears whenever he tilted his head just so wasn’t just his imagination. Something was listening in. Lance didn’t know what it was or how it was doing what it was doing, but he only had to remember the feel of something slowly slithering into his ear canal while he’d lain on the cavern floor to be sure that it had something to do with that alien creature the others had fought.

As he stepped out of the shower, shivering despite the steam that still swirled around the bathroom, Lance tried to remind himself that Keith would be telling the others what he told him last night. Hunk and Pidge were basically the smartest people Lance had ever met, and Coran and Allura might have been sleeping for the last ten thousand years, but they were Alteans and apparently that meant they were pretty knowledgeable about other alien species what with them being great explorers and diplomats. It was more than a little comforting, knowing that his friends were the ones working on a solution. Lance only wished he wasn’t the one constantly causing the problem.

He sighed, rubbing at his eyes some more until his vision stopped blurring. The mirror that hung just above the sink was fogged over so Lance could only see the blur of his reflection as he approached, wrapping a towel around his waist. He retrieved his toothbrush and the paste that Allura had given them all that best resembled toothpaste and started brushing his teeth. The routine of it helped more than the shower did, surprisingly enough, and the taste of burnt plastic on the back of his tongue faded as he rinsed his mouth.

Lance was almost feeling cheerful when he started to wipe the mirror of its clouded fog. He was looking at his reflection, pushing his fingers through his hair and considering asking Hunk to give him a haircut when this was all over, when he noticed a small black smudge at the corner of one of his eyes. It looked almost like a drop of ink except that the consistency was thicker and that it stayed stayed exactly where it was without running down his cheek. He leaned in closer to get a better look in the mirror, bringing his hand up to wipe it away and assume nothing of it. But as it smeared across his skin more of the black liquid started to leak out of the corner of his eye.

“What the quiznack?” he breathed, bending over the sink so far that his forehead was practically touching the surface of the mirror. No matter how close he got though, the black sludge continued to appear, now in the corner of both eyes. Blinking did him no good, only caught the mess in his eyelashes until it was hard to open them fully. He quickly reached to pull another towel from the rack on the wall, scrubbing at his face with it. Now his eyes were stinging and contact with the towel only seemed to make it worse, the usually soft fabric feeling rough and coarse against his skin. Throwing the towel away, Lance slammed the sink on and water came pouring out into his hands which he quickly splashed into his eyes. While the cool water did relieve some of the pain it did nothing to stop the flow of black liquid from his tear ducts. And it only seemed to come faster as he stood there staring at himself in the mirror, terror welling up inside him along with the sludge collecting along the rim of his eyes until it was so hard to see that Lance could barely make out the features of the bathroom around him.

Lance choked on a scream that never made it past his mouth. The muscles in his throat closed up until he could hardly suck in air, his whole body spasming and his knees hitting the ground as a bright flash of pain shot up through his legs. He was spitting out whispered curses into his palm, still desperately trying to clear his vision, when he felt something shift inside his head. It was a sharp click, like a bone being snapped painfully back into place, followed quickly by a rush of numbness that spread throughout his muscles. Then it was as if his consciousness was being forced back, still awake, but unable to feel or move any of his limbs. A garbled, inhuman noise spilled from his throat, though he did nothing to make it, and a splattering of black sludge hit the floor of the bathroom. His breathing completely stopped, but it didn't feel like he was choking anymore. In fact, it didn't feel like much of anything. All he could do was watch and wait and stare in blank horror at the ground. It could have been a full minute later when his body finally took a huge gasp of air and his spine jerked upwards in a harsh arch.  

And then, without Lance’s permission, his body began to move and stand up.

* * *

 

 

Pidge, Coran, and Allura were the only ones in the dining room when Hunk entered, all three of them looking over at him with concern as he sat down at the table. He didn’t blame them, Hunk knew he must have looked awful. He’d woken up that morning in the infirmary with Lance’s jacket draped over his back and a stiff neck from falling asleep at the room’s only table. Lance had, of course, been nowhere in sight. Hunk was pretty sure it was a sign that things had gone from bad to worse when he wasn’t even surprised anymore that his best friend went missing every time someone wasn’t looking directly at him.

“He probably just went back to his own room to sleep, Hunk,” Pidge said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder when he told the others what had happened. He’d already passed Shiro on the way to the dining room and he’d assured him Lance had to be with Keith since Keith had been scheduled to take second watch over Lance and he’d never gone to wake up Shiro for his third watch the night before. Hunk knew that either of them were most likely right, but they still knew next to nothing about whatever Lance had contracted on that last alien planet and he was eager for Allura to run her tests so they could get some answers.

Almost fifteen minutes later, Shiro and Keith appeared, and the serious expression on Shiro’s face quickly stamped out any fleeting hope Hunk had that Lance had slept off his strange illness from the previous day and was now perfectly fine.

“What happened?” he asked, pushing back his chair to stand. Keith looked about as tired as he felt, wearing a frown so deep it looked like it was carved into his face.

“Lance didn’t catch a disease on that last planet,” Keith said, his jaw clenched tight. He hadn’t taken a seat and didn’t look like he had any intention to. “He says there’s something inside him and he thinks its listening. That’s why he’s not here. He doesn’t want it to know that he knows it's there.”

It took a moment for Keith’s words to register in Hunk’s mind. Images of shining black tendrils wrapping around Lance’s legs, his hand still outstretched as he fell away into the chasm, flashed behind his eyelids. He remembered Lance flinching when he’d reached out to touch him at breakfast the day before.

“What- what does that even mean?” Hunk’s fingers were gripping the back of his chair so tight his knuckles hurt. Shiro quickly stepped in.

“We’re not sure. I don’t think Lance is really sure himself. But if what Lance thinks is true, I think what we’re dealing with is more along the lines of a parasite.”

From the other end of the table, Allura made a thoughtful noise. “It’s certainly plausible. Though if we’re going to be certain we’ll need to get him to the infirmary to run some tests.”

“If it is listening,” Pidge said slowly. “How are we going to do that without alerting whatever it is inside him? It’s already shut down our equipment before, who knows what it will take down if it feels threatened.”  

And Hunk knew what they were saying was logical, knew he should probably join the discussion to help think of a solution, but suddenly, it just all seemed too clinical to him. He looked from Coran to Allura to Pidge, their mouths working, and he couldn’t hear a word they were saying. All he could think about was how if he were in Lance’s position, he’d be terrified. He’d feel alone and scared and helpless, and Lance had to be feeling all that except now he was somewhere off by himself again and they were all sitting around talking about him like he was a puzzle to solve. Hunk stared down at the table and bit his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood.

Keith was beside him between one breath and the other, his arm pressed against Hunk’s. He wasn’t looking at him, but Hunk could feel the tension in the way he held himself and recognized it as the same as his own. In that instant, he was sure they understood each other better than they had before.

It was only a few seconds later that an alarm went off, turning everyone’s head towards the direction of a screen that opened itself in the air above their heads. The image that it displayed was grainy and unclear, as if something was interfering with the signal, though Hunk could see that it was displaying the interior of the ship. He heard Allura gasp quietly.

“That’s the ship’s generator room,” Coran exclaimed. The video feed cut out for a few seconds and none of them spoke. When it came back on Hunk could see an unmistakable figure dressed in the blue paladin’s armor.

He breathed out Lance’s name and watched his friend walk towards the glowing, white-blue core of the ship as the video display warped around him. There was something off about his gait. It had lost all the swagger and confidence Lance usually walked with and was replaced by something more unstable, more unbalanced.

“What’s he doing?” Pidge said, and underneath the confusion, Hunk could hear fear in her voice.

Allura lurched up from her seat. “We must stop him! If he’s able to—“

But Lance had already reached the control panel. He placed his hands on the metal surface and then without warning, the video feed cut out and the screen closed. There was a vibration under their feet that was the only warning they got before the whole ship lurched, sending everything in the room that wasn’t bolted to the ground tumbling sideways. Hunk barely managed to keep his footing by grabbing on to Keith's arm, but some of the others weren't so lucky. The lights overhead flickered and then turned a dim red as several alarms started to blare at once.

“He’s taken out the main engine!” Coran cried from the ground where he’d fallen a few seconds previously.

“Allura, what does that mean?” Shiro said as he helped Pidge up off the floor.

“It means that we won’t be able to go anywhere until the engine is up and running again. And if I’m right about this parasite’s objective, it will be heading for the ship’s crystal next.”

“What happens when he gets to the ship’s crystal?” Keith asked from where he was bent over the table for balance. 

Allura's expression was grim, her eyes on all of them as she addressed them. “We’ll lose all power. We’ll be stranded, and then it will only be a matter of days before we run out of breathable air.”

Hunk’s shoulders were shaking and he couldn’t stop the anger from leaking into his voice as he spoke. “Lance wouldn’t do this. That thing, it’s got to be controlling him.”

“We know, Hunk," Shiro said. "But right now we can’t worry about that. We have to get to the main control room now or else helping Lance won’t be our only problem.” He turned to the rest of them. “Come on, there’s no time to spare.”  

They all took it for the signal that it was and ran for the door. It was only Hunk and Keith that stayed a few seconds behind, staring up at the space in the air where they had last seen Lance. Hunk couldn’t help but wonder what they would have to do when they found him and the deep intake of breath that Keith took in beside him, made him think that Keith was wondering the same thing. They looked towards each other and a wordless conversation passed between them before they both nodded and headed to follow the others. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm voltstron on tumblr if anyone wants to come talk to me about these space idiots.


End file.
